Alice in Damned Land
by Sonora Avilon
Summary: It's all dramatic irony.
1. What have I done?

hi! this is my first alice in wonderland story...so i hope you all enjoy!!!

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Alice in Damned Land

Chapter 1

I hadn't really meant to kill him. I hadn't meant to sully my father's expensive butcher knife in his blood…but I did. There wasn't any excuse or pardon for what I had done, no matter what I claimed it to be, all the evidence pointed to me.

Me and only me.

Everything that had happened was unintentional. And in court, I had pleaded innocent. The judge had whispered to the defendant secretly behind my back, he said that I was clearly insane by the wild stories that I had told. He said that I made the whole thing up and was acting like a child to gain the sympathy of the jury and to avoid the death penalty. But I hadn't made the story up, it was all true; not one word that I spoke during the trial had been false. The judge had even made fun of me when I had mentioned a talking cat…

You see, it all began that one night.

I had been left home alone by my parents, and the eerie quiet that I was experiencing had become a disturbing…no, death resounding hum in my ears. It was just too much and I was just too weak to resist it.

I felt trapped.

The sound kept reverberating off the walls so loudly, but there was never any noise. The quiet had created a resonance of its own, deep and hollow, but rich within its dark melody. There seemed to be a voice that sang to the silent music, shrieking and gurgling in the background, but the words danced, lacing themselves within the harmony of the song; now and then twitching like a scratched record.

I felt scared.

I tried to run when the music closed in, ringing horribly in my ears, but found little refuge from the impending sounds. My every footstep blared deafeningly in my own ears, blinding me as the noise echoed relentlessly about my head. The spasmodic tune was drown out by the obtrusive booming, thumping…no, pounding against my skull. With every throb I rocked to the side, swaying dangerously, blindly groping for the shadowed voice singing just beyond my reach.

I felt like screaming.

I finally grabbed hold of something, to blind to tell what, and swung it towards the voice. The singing stopped suddenly and a new voice arose, higher, more operatic than the other, screeching out the notes in an earsplitting scream. The object that was still in my hand trembled as my body shook in trepidation. The object was flung from my fingers, shattering through the shrill screams and silencing the monotone whine of the silence. I felt an unnatural calm fall over me as I sank to the floor relishing the lonely, quiet feeling.

There was no more noise.

My eyes opened, slowly revealing the world through a black fog. Everything was the same, nothing was different. I stood up and wiped off my white apron with my hands, but stopped when something wet smeared across it and soaked red into the fabric. My hand froze and my eyes widened. My hands were still lain against my apron, shaking slightly, as I lifted my arms up and turned my hands over. Blood coated the inside of my palm and the tips of my convulsing fingers.

What had I done?

His body was twitching in a silent seizure and blood squirted out of the ragged flesh of his neck. He had been holding a gun…

I had started out as the victim, but soon enough, I had become the predator.

The world spun out of control. Squiggling lines of color swam through the air as the green from outside the window flew inside. The walls twisted and turned, melding together with the curtains and the wooden window frame, their colors glowing and pulsating as one although all of the colors were different. The hues flashed like lightning above me and riveted across the sky as the floor beneath me became a giant black hole…

…and I fell.

TBC.

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a little short, but it's just a tester chap to see if anybody likes it! so if you like it, review! if not...review anyways! 


	2. That's strange

Sorry for the long wait! I was having computer trouble! But here it is, Chap. 2!

This is just a filler so I can get into wonderland.

But enjoy anyways!

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Alice in Damned Land

Chapter 2

When I opened my eyes, a hazy feeling was surrounding me and I felt as if I were drowning. My lungs contracted in and out...but no air seemed to be distributed to my blood. I felt like I was drifting in water, but this breathless feeling was too airless to be...to be..._this_. Things appeared to be floating upward next to me in a slow, languid fashion; never quite moving up but not standing still either. Random spurts of color glowed below me, like I was sinking, but was I falling? No. I couldn't be falling, no, this wasn't possible! This, this...it just wasn't possible...was it?

I groped blindly with my hands. There had to be something that I could grab onto-

"Ah ha!" My fingers enclosed around a thin metal chain, recognizing what it was instinctively, and pulled it rewardingly. Light, boundless rays of light admitted from the lamp and finally I could see into the darkness.

Simple household items floated in the air around me, chairs, books, a fireplace, it was all there. It was like a rabbit hole was it not?

I shook my head. This wasn't real, nothing out of the ordinary was real, it never was and never will be. I was dreaming, nothing more. And why I thought of a rabbit hole...that was just childish! No way was I a child anymore! I was a grown woman and a respected young lady, this was just nonsense!

I continued to fall down, slowly, slowly, never quite reaching the bottom, and never an exit. I tilted back my head back to examine just how far I had fallen already, to see if I could get back out, but I could no longer see the bright light of the sun shinning in through the entrance hole. What would a rabbit do in a situation like this...?

"Stop it, Alice!" I whined impassively to myself. Why must I think of rabbits at a time like this?! This was preposterous! "You idiot! You're not a child."

"I'm late! I'm late!"

My ears perked up at the sudden sound. It wasn't the silence singing anymore, it was a person's voice, someone else. That meant that I wasn't alone down here! I wasn't alone! I tried to use my arms to swim through the air, but remembered the inappropriateness of the hem of my skirt flailing up behind me; I was a lady after all. I relaxed my muscles and just drifted, I could be patient.

Only, the problem was, I wasn't falling very fast.

"Rabbits don't have skirts to stop them!" I scoffed, "They're too selfish for an unpretentious rodent!"

Again with the rabbits.

"I'm late! I'm late! For a very important date!"

And there it went again, that same voice as before, high and nasally, the whole bit. But, the question was, were was he? I looked down below me, trying to spot him, but there were no signs of movement. Strange...there was nothing.

"No time to say "hello", goodbye!"

Again, the voice wheezed out his urgent song. Silly. The song was so silly. Who in their right mind would sing a song of such nonsense? "I'm late"?

"I'm late! I'm late! I'm late!"

I rolled my eyes. How immature of him, not even a child would sing that kind of song; it was just stupid!

I crossed my arms, my eye twitching impatiently, "Just get to the bottom already!"

At that moment, my eye caught a long quilted map hanging on the wall, people were lined all around the edges of a large blue and green world. The people were all holding hands, I guess representing world peace or something, and those at the bottom of the earth were standing upside-down. "That's strange, do people really walk upside-down?" I reached out to touch the picture, "Upside-down..." I breathed in a cloud of sawdust as I ran my finger down the fabric, "No that's silly, nobody-"

My head flew back and my body was twisted around backwards. I felt my legs bend as my head dipped down and swept across -what I guessed to be- the floor. I shut my eyes from the sudden rush of blood to my head and cringed. I hated that feeling. But I supposed that it was better than landing on your head and cracking open your skull. I hung there for a second, waiting for the sudden surge of blood to lessen, and released a sigh of relief, "Ha...you're OK. You're OK...huh?"

Running down the black and white tiled hallway was a fat, white rabbit. He was wearing a red trench coat; whose tails were flying out behind him as he ran, and he carried a golden watch, which was dangling behind him, clanking on the ground.

"Excuse me? Mr. Rabbit!'" I waved my hand wildly as I swung my legs back over and fell to the floor.

The rabbit stopped in mid hop. I hesitantly stood up from the floor as the rabbit's long ears twitched and turned, relaying where the sound had come from. The small slivers of vein that showed through the skin of the rabbits ears tightened and rose, dominantly defining themselves. They were like bulging rivulets of blood in white snow.

I clamped my hands over my mouth when it turned around, "Oh...Lord."

Bloodshot eyes stared unwaveringly back at me, the yellow of his irises melding together with the lumpy veins popping up through the thin film covering his palpitating orbs. His left eye lazily rolled back in the clear ooze that it appeared to be coated in, but was stopped by the dry, crusty skin that lined his eyelashes. His nose stiffly sniffed the air as transparent green snot ran over the rabbits cut and flaking lips. Clumps of dandruff infested fur scattered itself anonymously around the rabbits body, shedding to the floor with the sudden jerky movements that he made. His teeth were kneading against his upper lip nervously when, disturbingly, drool dribbled down the side of his chin in a large clear glob, "I'm late."

"Oh...I ummm..." I hadn't had time to stutter anything out before the rabbit had already turned and started hopping away. But...why did that rabbit look so scary? I mean, aren't rabbits supposed to be cute...cuddly? Those eyes...they, they just aren't right. That pasty yellow color...the milks of its eyes, the way they weren't white...no, no that's not right. Not right. "No. No. No. Not right. Not right. No-"

My feet began to walk forward, down farther and farther into the black and white hallway. I wrapped my arms around myself, feeling a sense of security, and because...I was scared. If the rabbit held enough of my fear to keep me up till the late hours of night...then what would something lying deeper in this God forsaken place hold?

My feet stopped in front of a medium sized door. Curiosity stood dormant on my shoulder, edging me on further...so I opened it.

"Huh? That's strange..." With my previous worries forgotten, I stared face-to-face with another door, "This doesn't make sense...another door?" My fingers wound themselves around the second door's handle and I tugged it towards myself forcefully, "What?!" I glared at the door that had just replaced the last, grabbing the knob and yanking it open. When yet another door appeared before me, I successfully de-hinged it from the wall in my frantic squabblings to get through. Finally, there was an opening, small, but big enough for me to crawl through.

This led me into a gigantic multi-colored room. The walls were all tiled, random colors occupied the small squares, and on the opposite end of the room...there was one last door. I slowly walked forward till I stood before it, and I squatted down.

Blank, white eyes stared up at me as I turned the knob.

TBC.

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Oooh...what will happen next?

R&R


	3. Cheater

Oh! Thank u to all who reviewed! I haven't had any time to write anything with all this stupid summer reading I have to do. I have to read like 4 books! I have 2 weeks left off and I've only read 2 books!!! Well I should get on that, but I had to post this first! lol

This is where I started adding my own little twists to the plot!

Hope u all enjoy!

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Alice in Damned Land

Chapter 3

"I'm locked you know."

"Huh?! Who's there!" My head swung around as I let go of the doorknob.

"No one's over there, Miss. The room is completely empty except for you and me."

"You!" My words came out in a airless gasp, "Where are_ you_!"

"Why I'm here, behind you."

My body jerked around as I desperately searched for the unknown voice, "Where?!"

"I'm down here, Miss." A door was all I saw when I looked down. But as I stood there, the tiny knob seemed to turn on it's own...like the door was alive, "Ai, Miss. Haven't you ever talked to a talking door before? We're the most common type of door here in Wonderland."

"...Wonderland?"

"Why yes. Wonderland!"

Strange. What a peculiar name for such a peculiar place...

"And I beckon you welcome."

"But how..."

"Did you _get_ here? Well I suppose you followed that white rabbit and accidentally fell down a rabbit hole, no?"

I thought for a second about what the door had said. Who in their right mind would follow such a scary rabbit? "I didn't follow any rabbit. I was in...my living room..."

"So if you didn't follow a white rabbit, what did you do?"

Suddenly I remembered the knife lying all bloody on the floor, "And I..." The memory was so vivid I could see the man's dying breath cascade into the air and hear the silence's shrill operatic voice in the distance.

My breathing hitched.

"Young lady, what did you do?"

I stopped breathing and stared straight ahead as a sharp sting prickled malevolently behind my eyes. My hands went numb as so did my heart. I _killed_ someone.

"Miss?"

I _murdered_ someone.

"What."

_I._

"Did."

_Killed._

"You."

_Someone._

"Do?"

"I..killed someone."

I didn't look down at the door in hopes to miss the look of disappointment that crossed his steal plated face, "I'm sorry, but Wonderland isn't for people like you. There is no wonder for those who don't deserve it and kill to get it."

"But I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Of _course_ you did."

"No, you have to believe me!"

"There is nothing but raw consequence for those who cheat."

"What?"

"Cheating. Nobody likes a cheater."

"I didn't _cheat_! He had a gun!"

"Those who cheat fate end up here."

"I didn't _cheat_! I was protecting myself from dying! It was self defense!"

"In simpler terms, you weren't supposed to live."

"What?"

"You cheated."

With that, the door's sultry face disappeared into the wood and steal it was consisted of, and I stood shocked. _Cheat_. The word sounded so villainous...evil. But did I do such a horrible thing? I really didn't...

A sharp crack was issued behind me, "Ah!" My heart was dangling on the tip of my tongue as a glass table laid shattered on the color infested floor behind me. I held tightly onto the fabric covering my chest trying to steady my erratic breathing, begging for an explanation as to where the table had come from. But looking up to the ceiling only agitated my question enough for it to become a mystery, for the ceiling was, in fact, a void of hovering black smoke leading into the abyss of nowhere. This sick joke of a dream wasn't funny anymore.

I felt my body backing up, away from the glass that seemed to bleed from every shard, away from the horrible nightmare that I had entered, and away from the key to my freedom. The only key that would unlock the door to my Wonderland.

I jumped when something thick and rough stopped me from behind. The previous turmoil of the door and table were long forgotten as stood terrified, staring at a rotting, wicked looking tree. Wooden knots oozed out of the trees bark, dribbling down its trunk like sap and pooling as roots around my feet. Signs hung off the tree, swaying in a dusty breeze as it wisped by. I spun around seeking the room and the door...but only a weeping willow remained in its place, the black smoke seeping dangerously low about the leafless branches. No signs hung on this tree.

I kept getting the nagging feeling like I was being watched and began circling around, paranoia taking its vicious toll. I was alone and in the dark, but I could have sworn that I wasn't. I gazed back up into the nothingness just in time to see a thin crescent moon reveal itself through the smoke. Its light shone down upon the signs dangling from the trees and I found myself more puzzled then I was ever scared.

While one sign was pointing down, another would be pointing up telling of which the other should. It must be that in this world, up is down and down is up. Left is right and right is left. This way is that way and that way is this way. I looked back up at the moon, the feeling of paranoia returning as I was no longer distracted. The moon seemed to smiled down at me with a twisted grin, like with all of the light the moon emitted, eyes were staring down at me from behind, hidden by the hideous contrast. I had to find a place to hide. So I walked over over to the nearest tree trying to find a hole of some sort, nervously glancing back up at the moon.

As soon as I looked away, bent over trying to see around the tree, a deep, careless hum drifted through the air followed by a chilling voice.

"Hm huhm huhm. Loose something?"

"What?! Who's there?"

"I was just asking a generous question, My Dear. No need to be frightened."

"Who are you?"

There was a long pause, till, it spoke again, "Some call me Lucifer, but you probably don't know what that means do you?"

"...No."

"Ah, I see. So now I give you another name that you may prefer to speak of instead." A pink and purple tale swung out of the darkness, sweeping across a tree branch, creating a feline-like body with its head shadowed in the black smoke, "The Cheshire Cat." The moon slowly seeped through the smoke as the smile of a yellow eyed cat.

TBC.

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Ah ha! We are now officially in wonderland! What do you guys think, is it good enough to continue? 


	4. Tips of Insanity

Whoa. Sorry its been so long. Lifes a bitch, but no matter. Heres the next chap, not very long, but it might be all i can do for a while. And thankies to all who reviewed. It makes me super special awesome happy XD.

Enjoy!

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Alice in Damned Land 

Chapter 4

"...The Cheshire Cat?" But that didn't make sense...why would someone call themselves a name with Cheshire in it? Was he just trying to be funny?

I opened my mouth to ask, but the cat's abhorrent grin was disgruntling, so I decided otherwise. Though I thought it odd that when the cat spoke his smile never faded...it just stayed there...glued to his face almost hauntingly. He was similar to the white rabbit in a way, like there was something missing...something sane and rational, but I just couldn't figure out what.

"Hmmm I did say that was my name, didn't I?" The cat's tail twitched as he laid his puffed cheek in his paw, using his 'thumb' to rub his chin, "Yes, Yes I did."

I figured that I might as well ask him where we were and try not to let his obnoxious smile bother me, "Ummm, excuse me. Where...?" I waved my hand towards the trees and the hovering black smoke trying to emphasize my question.

The cat's ever impending smirk of delight widened, "Why child, didn't you know?" His voice was slippery and smooth as he wisped the subtle words into my ears, "You're in Hell."

...Hell. That's the place where the damned are condemned too. Where they spend eternity burning, and burning...never finding paradise. But what am I saying, I'm only describing myself...

"Mr. Cat?" I expected the cat to be dangling about the tree branch when I looked up, smiling that frightening smile, but to my astonishment, he was gone. I glanced back, to the side, to the other side, back to the front, but there was no cat to be found.

He just...vanished.

I couldn't have felt anymore alone than I was then. No sound, no music, no silence. Though, at least, no matter how scary the cat had been, he made this place a bit less...lonely. But wasn't that life? A series of gains and losses? And I, was at a loss. Was that it?

"Yes, child?" The voice came out of nowhere, shrill and melancholy, shredding the very tranquility of the world apart.

"Mr. Cat!" Inside my chest, my heart accidentlly fell into cavern of my body, swallowed up by the acids of my stomach, causing me to almost vomit.

"You wanted something?" The very sanity of the world whithered away at the sound of his voice. He sounded so calm, so relaxed...

High.

"I...was just wondering."

He raised a furry eyebrow, inquiring, "What of which were you wondering?"

"Uh, which way I ought to go...there are so may ways." I seemed to involuntarily laugh when I said that, like I was trying to create a pleasant conversation.

His smile drove itself up the sides of his cheeks, taking away the cat-like look he once sported, leaving only the face of a man; like so many I had seen before. Wry and induced by the devilish drug of madness; the bitter liquor of Satan himself...

The diminishing light in the word sanity...

This world, these animals...insanity gripped their souls like a disease, infecting their minds; their very lives. Was this what was to become of me in this Hell?

"Well, that all depends," the cat stood up on it's hind legs, "_where_, you want to get _to_."

"I'm not sure where I am really..." My voice cracked as the cat stared down at me with his yellow eyes, "But, I was following a white rabbit..."

The cat twitched, "A _white_ rabbit, you say?"

"Yes, have you seen him?" Truthfully, I never wanted to see the rabbit again, but I would prefer his company over this mental harassment.

"Never."

I frowned and bowed my head.

Nonchalantly, I saw the cat point, "He went that way."

I looked up suddenly, "Who did?"

"The white rabbit."

"He did?"

"He did what?"

"Went that way."

"Who did?"

"The white rabbit!"

"What rabbit?"

"But didn't you just say... Oh! Never mind."

I felt the cat's eyes on me as I stood with my back turned; I just refused to meet his glance.

"However," he spoke again, his vocalization tinged in poison, "you seemed to have known where he went."

He was gone by the time I turned back around.

And I was once again alone...

Alone to inject the savoring drug of insanity...

And alone to let it swallow my very being inside.

TBC.


	5. Treacle is the Question

Alice in Damned Land

Chapter 5

"`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves..."

I didn't know what to do now.  
"Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:"

I just wanted to go home.  
"All mimsy were the borogoves,"

I just wanted to cry.  
"And the mome raths outgrabe."

At the moment, all I could think of doing was reciting a poem. But maybe it wasn't the smartest poem to hum at the moment, considering that I was in a forest, and in the fabled territory of my childhood nightmare.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son..."

I stared out into the darkness that was sinisterly contaminating the air, silently complemented by the hovering black smoke that rained from the sky and the absent crescent moon.

"The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!"

I found myself backed up against a tree.

"Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun..."

My head snapped up.

"The frumious Bandersnatch!"

I felt my eyes begin to tear as my face began heating up. And suddenly, I heard the silence sing again, so fierce and shrill that my bodice shook in trepidation. Why must the silence sing! Why!

I slumped down against the tree, defeated. I just couldn't stand to hear the silence again. I clasped my hands over my ears, hung my head between my knees, screamed so vehemently that my lips bled. But the silence sang through. My fingers twitched as I opened my eyes and lifted my hands away from my face, tears burning painfully down my cheeks. I ground my teeth together seeking to ease the shrieking that soaked through my skin and into my soul, meshing violently with my blood. My body was shaking, shaking horribly. The cat, the rabbit, those hideous creatures that spawn in the darkness! Those damned creatures!

There had to be some place to hide, to escape the horror of the demons grabbing about her ankles, tearing the hem of her dress.

_ Run Alice, run._

There had to be others roaming this cursed land holding their heads and screaming. She couldn't be the only one damned and sentenced to remain in this malediction of a existence.

_Run Alice, run._

There had to be an end to the impending sounds and contradictions. There had to be day; night. There just had to be.

_Run Alice, run._

_Run._

With whatever strength that she could muster, Alice bolted from her position from underneath the knotted tree. She ran through masses of clustered trees, neurotic shriveling masses of demonic faces that threatened to consume her whole. She ran past the signs, the pooling, oozing sap, the branches where the cat had resided, the entrance; the beginning.

_Alice ran._

To where she ran she had no idea. The land had become less sophisticated and more alien. The trees were no longer twisted grimaces and grim frowns; they had become more like trees but still Alice was not convinced that they were real. They seemed plastic.

In the presence of this new discovery, in the distance, a chimney could be seem. Smoke did not reach out from within its depths, but to Alice a chimney meant a house; and a house meant people. To some extent she did not believe that a human being would walk through the oak door to greet her, but in her disoriented state, this was as good a chance as any. This was her chance to feel comforted; safe.

Standing before the door, Alice raised her hand tentatively.

One knock. Two knocks. Three knocks. With every clank of the knocker, Alice could feel dread creeping scandalously up her spine, inching closer to her heart. Her breathing quickened, her heart raced, her hands sweat, "Maybe just one more knock."

Alice licked her lips nervously, anticipating the sweeping motion of the door as it would slowly open, revealing security and solace, anything to mollify her anxiety. But the door did not open; it remained inanimate. Everything remained inanimate.

"Maybe they're just busy. Maybe..."

"There once was a family of three young girls who lived in a well."

With proper words spoken, Alice let go of the doors lowly knocker. Almost hypnotically she strode towards the white picket fence signifying the yard of the quaint house; her hope regaining its meek steadfastness. This was it; she was saved. Upon placing her hand upon the lock of the fence, Alice caught a glimpse at the sky overhead. The weather had changed. The sky was a brilliant blue with tireless rolling clouds stumbling about it like a wonderland.

"Like a wonderland," she thought listlessly, relieved that smog no longer hung heavily overhead; smog that threatened acid rain, smog that threatened to released _other_ things. Like monsters.

But it was no longer time to daydream, Alice knew this. It was time to meet the voices on the other side. The singsong voices that sounded of cheer and accompaniment. Voices of the rational and the sane, so sane, in fact, that they might be reading from a Shakespearean novel.

"Their names were Elise, Lacie, and Tillie."

Closer she stepped towards the voices, their conversation intriguing and lovely.

"They lived on treacle."

"They couldn't have done that, they'd have been extremely ill."

"So they were. They were so very _ill_."

"And what were the girls doing at the bottom of the well?"

"These particular girls were learning to draw, you know."

"What did they draw?"

"Treacle."

"Where did they draw the treacle from?"

"Inside the well."

"How?"

"If one can draw water in a water well, then I should assume that a person should be able to draw treacle in a treacle-well."

"Oh."

"So these girls drew a plethora of things; everything and all things beginning with the letter M."

"Why an M?"

"Why not?"

The second voice remained silent.

"These particular girls, the ones learning to draw, would draw things such as mousetraps, the moon, memory, and muchness. You know how you say things are "much of a muchness"; could you imagine these girls drawing muchness. What is muchness to look like?"

As the question hung heavily in the air, Alice stepped up behind a large set of mismatched chairs, once again puzzled and curiosity struck, "If you ask me, I don't think—"

Quickly, as if she hadn't spoken soon enough, the former voice quipped up, "If you don't think then you shouldn't talk."

Shocked by the rudeness of the comment Alice frowned, "Excuse me?"

Standing up from behind a large overstuffed couch, a man emerged. He stood only as tall as Alice, but his size was different; grungier. His face was withered, old even, but youthful in a strange way. But just as she feared the rabbits eyes, the man stared at her through red rimmed orbs, tired and irritated from infection. His eyelashes were barely in tact and his eye brows were mockingly missing from his accentuated face. What looked like wrinkles adorned his cheek bones, but to Alice, they were not wrinkles, more like burns or scars aged by time; sagging under silence. He was dressed in a checkered suit with a mustered colored bow tie; a ugly maroon top hat reading : "In This Style 10/6" was placed atop his head. He was an interesting character, no doubt, but a blankness was worn across his lips that was disgruntling, "If you don't think, don't speak."

As the man spoke, another figure rose from behind a wooden lawn chair, "Yeah, it is very rude to interrupt a conversation. Especially if you don't think."

Alice was taken aback by this creature, his displaced eyes causing her to grimace. For what it was worth, he was a rabbit, to her this was certain. However he was less uptight as the man had been, he was, as of all Alice could think of, repugnant. His fur was mangled and matted, dirty brown and coated in vomit, piss, anything vulgar. His eyes, as she others, was vacant and raw, infected with some rotting bacteria that eats through flesh and cartilage. His chipped front teeth gnawed licentiously on his tongue, maybe not violently enough to draw blood but enough to eat the organ over time without pain.

"What's your problem? Haven't you seen a rabbit before?"

Alice glanced back at the man, almost repulsed at the strained expression that he demonstrated in her direction, "Uh, yes, sir."

"Then stop staring. Staring is rude," the man sunk back behind the couch in a languid fashion, seamlessly even; like the motion he displayed was beautiful.

Shaking her head Alice stepped forward, "I'm sorry."

"That is fine, then. Hare, sit. We have not finished our tea."

On cue, the rabbit sat back down behind the chair, once again out of sight.

"I do enjoy tea as well, sir. Are you opposed to me joining you?"

Faceless voices spoke from behind the seats, "You weren't invited."

Alice walked up next to the table, adjacent to the man. She carefully pulled out one of the old chairs and sat down, "Do you mind if I sit, then? I am tired and my day has been most fastidious. Nothing wants to go smoothly, and out of all the persons that I have met today, most have come across as very gauche. It would be nice to have a pleasant conversation with such gracious men."

The man looked at Alice, "Then welcome to the party."

Alice sunk into the curvature of the folding chair, never breaking eye contact with the man, staring into the milky whites of his eyes cautiously. Even though she could sense the urgency to leave the situation, she continued to sit ladylike, and in the most polite manner, Alice placed her hands atop the clothed table, the rabbit watching her with his wayward eyes, "So what shall I call either of you?"

The man spoke solemnly, "This is my dear friend, the March Hare. And I, for all intensive purposes, am the Hatter."

"Just the Hatter, then?"

Looking quite grim at Alice's statement, a putrid expression crossed the Hatter's unpleasant face, "I suppose you could call me the Mad Hatter."

Alice shivered, but remained calm, "Why is that, sir?"

"Because we're all mad here."


	6. The Meaning of Blackness

I just watched the new Alice in Wonderland. It was so good that I wanted a refund.

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Alice in Damned Land

Chapter 6

Alice tried her best to be mature, but such a thing did not reside within her veins. She was cranky, sore-tempered, and immature. She never had the patience to wait for a surprise or the accommodations to play games. Alice was just that way, lacking self-control and tolerance.

But so did they.

The Hatter was so pedantic, nit-picking, self-indulgent. He was just like Alice in a way, defective to a point, flawed; maybe even impaired, but lavish. He sat so rigid in his seat, his face mockingly ever present. The Hatter was interesting, Alice supposed, but there was this quality that was unnerving to her. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, that unattractive feature of the Hatter's; it was so abhorrently obvious what that attribute was, it was so recognizable, so unmistakeable. But it was like anything else that one forgets from time to time, it was just an aloof compromise.

The Hare was just mad.

Alice sat listening to the Hatter and the Hare's conversation all the while wondering if what they were saying meant anything at all. Treacle? Dormice?

Alice tentatively spoke, "Excuse me."

With that said, the Hatter ceased speaking and remained ominously quiet, all the while staring at Alice in a shadowing way. It was so quiet that Alice, if not for her sudden curiousness, might have remembered what exactly it was that was tip-toeing up her spine so bitterly.

"What – " the Hatter's voice was clipped, annoyed, "do you want?"

Alice leaned back into her chair, suddenly afraid of speaking, now fearing the Hatter for what he was worth, sweating under what she thought to be anxiety, her underarms soaked with what might have been fear. She swallowed hard, struggling to suppress the sobbing, physical panic rising in her throat, "I was wondering..." Alice shifted uncomfortably in her seat, hot air surrounding her face, her neck, her groin, "if what you're talking about," she stuttered terribly, the Hatter's face staring so dauntingly above her, "has any meaning?"

The Hatter grimaced, "Stupid little girl."

Alice choked as she buckled her knees, "I – "

Before Alice could speak, the Hatter rose from his seat, "Should it have meaning?" The Hatter stooped his head looking Alice in the eyes, "Who are you to ask meaning," he frowned, "you stupid little girl?"

Alice opened her mouth to speak but found that she had no voice to speak with. The Hatter had stolen it, snatched it up like empty change in one's pocket, "I – "

"Tell me, _girl_, what is important to you?" but the Hatter wouldn't let Alice answer, "Do you even know what's important at all?"

Alice licked her lips, "I – I don't know..."

"Then who are you to ask meaning if you don't even know what anything means at all."

Alice couldn't speak, her throat was burning with bile; her head swimming with tremors. Why couldn't Alice have stumbled onto a home of love and affection? Why did she have to sit here and feel hot with dread? It was beginning to hurt, the things in this world. The terror was beginning to hurt.

"Please, sir, _please_. I meant nothing of it, really!" Alice held her hands in the air in defense for her prior comment. What could she say to redeem herself?

The Hatter scoffed loudly, "Then why did you even ask."

Overhead in the sky, clouds skipped and tumbled through the blue nothingness as heavier, more threatening clouds hovered closely behind. The white fluff of the clouds was dispersing quietly, twisting and deliriously melding with the blue which was silently mutating into a more morose gray. Following the gray came a darker gray and a darker gray until the black came. The black was silent and the black was angry as it hovered beneath the trees, sweeping like poisonous gas through a grassy plane. The black slunk through the dirt and the grass and the trees until it came to rest just outside of the tea party. The blackness made a guttural growl, low and resonant.

The blackness came grinding forward peacefully.

The Hatter sighed and jumped from his seat, "Come Hare, come inside. Let us rid ourselves of this nuisance," he glared pointedly in Alice's direction, "and drink our tea in silence."

With that said, the Hare fell ungraciously from his seat and raced to catch up with the Hatter who, unfortunately, suddenly stopped. The Hare ran head first into the Hatter's uncompromising spine, falling into a scrambled mess of clothing and fur beside him. However the Hatter did not move, he stared in ugly realization at something in the distance, his face not quite showing what could be recognized as fear, but something of uncertainty and repulsive shock.

The blackness gurgled.

"Do you know what should have meaning?"

Alice looked up from her daze and glanced at the Hatter who still stared at the forest beyond, "No. No I don't."

The Hatter turned, "Things like fear have meaning, and things that have muchness have meaning," the Hatter blinked, "maybe death, I suppose, but not many people die around here. At least, they usually don't."

Alice watched the Hatter stare back into the distance, "Why?"

The Hatter grimaced again, his eyelids slipping shut, "I don't exactly know," his eyelids rose tiredly, "but if you're lost enough, I'm sure it'll find you."

Alice was about to answer when a putrid, acidic smell slipped abhorrently across her senses. The smell hung heavily in the air, dripping like rain, sticking like pollution to Alice's skin. She reached up to wipe her face only to find that the smell was tangible like ooze and disgustingly sodden like slime.

Alice felt nausea creep into her mouth and dribble down her chin.

The Hatter spoke only once more, "There are things that reside in the darkest places of this land that even squeeze terror from my soul. If it can do such a thing, I should suppose it has meaning." Then the Hatter and the Hare were gone, vanished within the colorful decorations of the veranda of the house, lost within the fading blueness.

It was then that the blackness lurched again, closer and closer.

For even such a blackness could scare the deadest of helpers.

The blackness was alive.

And the blackness was dead.


End file.
